Heads still in the sand over young drivers

Formula 1 as a whole has been grossly negligent in developing drivers in recent years, argues Edd Straw. Down the line, this could come back to bite teams badly

Many of you have probably already written off Scuderia Toro Rosso pairing Daniel Ricciardo and Jean-Eric Vergne. It's all too easy to state dismissively that a top class driver will impress straight away no matter what the circumstances. After all, Lewis Hamilton did it, so expectations were redefined.

But few take into account that it was the experience of rookies that had changed during Hamilton's era. The dramatic slashing of testing ahead of the 2009 season transformed everything and the learning curve, in public at least, is dramatically steeper now than it was those of Hamilton's days.